Optimizing the In-Home Experience Chris Burnes Novus Entertainment

Optimizing the In-Home Wifi experience Most service providers access networks and speed offerings have increased to the point that the latest Wifi technology is required to show the capabilities of their service. The customers perception of your service is often based on the wireless experience you can offer. 1Gbps service means nothing if they can only get 20Mbps over Wireless At the end of 2016, there was an average of 10 Wifi connected devices per household. That number is expected to increase to 50 by 2020 Novus Today sometimes sees up to 90% interference on 2.4Ghz and the 5Ghz has become essential in the MDU market

Optimizing The Experience Comes Down To 4 Main Factors Deploying a High Quality Wifi Gateway Wifi Placement, Setup and Extension Advanced Support Tools for your Customer Service Educating and Enabling your Customer

Today: 802.1AC Wave 2 Key Features: Speeds Up to 1.3 Gbps 4x4 MU-MIMO – Send data to 4 Clients simultaneously. Can greatly increase experience when many devices are online at one time. Dynamic Beamforming – AccessPoint and Client communications allow the AP to direct Wifi signal to specific antennas towards the client. Provides a much more efficient and reliable connection. A MUST have for wireless IPTV set-tops even Wireless PVRs. Dynamic Frequency Selection

Advanced Wifi Gateway + Extender Calix 844 Series Features: 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n 2x2 MIMO 5GHz 802.11 a/n/ac 4x4 MU-MIMO Wave 2 Dynamic beamforming 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneous Multiple SSIDs per band 1000BASE-T Wan and Lan Ports TR-69 Remote Management Multiservice and QOS – 802.1q + 802.1p Smart Channel Select (SCS) Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) Channels

Wifi Gateway Placement Centralize the placement of your Wifi gateway. Offer an option for separating your demarc and Wifi gateway EX: Gpon Ont + Ethernet Based Wifi Gateway Always do a Site Survey to check Interference, speeds and Wireless Coverage. Smartphone and Laptop apps are freely available. EX: Smartphone Apps “Inssider” & Speedtest.Net Use site survey information to adjust placement and check your using the right channel to get the least interference and highest speeds Extend your Wireless with extenders as needed

Wifi Extension Test Coverage throughout your customers entire home. If there are prime areas with low signal, install extenders and possibly move your primary Wifi gateway Ensure you properly plan channel selection for each extender Always attempt to directly wire your Wifi Extenders back to your main gateway. New technologies are available such as G.hn that can get speeds up to 1Gbps over Powerline, Coax and Cat3 wiring. Today, setup each Extender with a Unique SSID. Customers Devices are still not smart enough to do proper hand-off between different access-points with the same SSID Next Gen Wifi Gateways and Extenders will support proper Roaming where the Access points themselves initiates the handoff and this will provide a new level of seamless wireless experience for the customer

Smartphone Apps

Wifi Gateway Setup Best Pratices Deploy different SSID names for 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz so the customer is aware what band they are on New gateways are better at identifying and adjusting to interference issues so you can now leave Channel Selection on Auto 5Ghz will adjust channels on the Fly 2.4 Requires a reboot For 5Ghz, disable DFS today in most cases. Although DFS offer a larger number of bands to use, there are a lot of devices still not compatible. Depending on the interference change the 5ghz Band. 80Mhz will give you more bandwidth but in high Interference 40Mhz can give you a more stable connection. Setup A uniquie SSID and WPA2 AES security with a 20 character password and include numbers, letters and various symbols. Disable Wan management access to the web interface if possible

Advanced CS Support Tools Support Portal or Remote Connect Remote Visibility of your Customers Network and Devices Currently Connected Devices and Offline Device history Per Device Wifi Strength, Train Rates, Retransmissions and Band Multicast Channel usage for IPTV services Service Status- IPTV, Voice and Data Wireless Interference and Channel Usage Troubleshooting and Recommendations Error and Qos Statistics for both your Wan and Lan interfaces Possibility to report on overall Wifi experience for your customers so you can identify and attempt to fix problems before they call you

Customer Device Information

Wireless Information and Troubleshooting

Educate and Enable your Customers Get your installers to educate your customers on the Wifi gateway and leave them with a quick start or user guide. A few extra minutes can go along way to ensure your customers is satisfied and save support calls. Always have the SSID and PWD on the device and in your User Guide Make your customer aware of the coverage of Wifi you are offering them to match their expectations with your setup. Ask your customer about the devices they will be using and offer advise as what band to use and if there is time even help them get everything connected 5Ghz is the band of choice if your device is compatible as there is so much less interfere there today. 2.4Ghz can be more stable for device further from your gateway as the lower frequency reaches further Ensure your customer understands the risks and importance of proper wireless security. WPA2 encryption with a complex password is a MUST!

Novus Presentation Wifi Gateway App Some Vendors offer an App to manage the Wifi gateway. This can reduce the complexity for your customer and reduce support calls.